Love stories, with a twist, by Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer-the author of the prizewinning memoir about growing up in Stalinist Russia, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel

By turns sly and sweet, burlesque and heartbreaking, these realist fables of women looking for love are the stories that Ludmilla Petrushevskaya-who has been compared to Chekhov, Tolstoy, Beckett, Poe, Angela Carter, and even Stephen King-is best known for in Russia.

Here are attempts at human connection, both depraved and sublime, by people across the life span: one-night stands in communal apartments, poignantly awkward couplings, office trysts, schoolgirl crushes, elopements, tentative courtships, and rampant infidelity, shot through with lurid violence, romantic illusion, and surprising tenderness. With the satirical eye of Cindy Sherman, Petrushevskaya blends macabre spectacle with transformative moments of grace and shows just why she is Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer.